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The girl likes the naps.

Ivy is three now and she loves her naps. She will put herself for a nap without prompting on an almost daily basis. She snuggles down in her blankets, cuddles her “digi”, pops her fingers in her mouth, and drops off to sleep within minutes, every time. She will sleep for a good two hours or more if I let her. If I do wake her up she is always mad at me for it.

The problem is that she’s starting to have trouble falling asleep at night. All the childrens go to bed at 7:30, although the bigs read in bed for up to an hour if they want. Ivy hasn’t been falling asleep till nine or later a lot of nights. And I’m not cool with that. It’s not that she’s getting out of bed, or crying, or misbehaving at all, really; generally she’s just chatting, playing, singing, etc. The problem is that I feel bad that she’s not tired when I put her in bed, but I don’t actually want to hang out with her anymore either (did I say that out loud?). I want to sit on the couch with Neil and listen to children sleeping.

So I thought, hey, she’s three, and on the days that she hasn’t been able to nap because we were out or something, she’s done just fine. She stays pretty happy and generally doesn’t melt down because she’s exhausted or something. So let’s do it. Let’s be done with naps.

I tried it for a few days. She did fine, and fell into bed at seven without a peep. But she missed her naps. She was literally begging me for a nap some days. She’s just not ready, even if I am.

So my current plan is to try to wake her up after around an hour, no more than an hour and a half (as precious as that free time is for me). She hates it though! She freaked out so bad at me when I woke her up the other day (after two hours!). I go into her room and open her blinds and turn down her white noise sound machine and gently touch her shoulder and whisper for her to wake up and come play. Then she screams that she wanted a “BIIIIIIG NAP!” and she yells over and over “TURN MY SOUND ‘CHINE ON!” and “MAKE IT DARK!!!” For infinity.

Sometimes, SOMETIMES, Sophia the First will get her out of bed. I’ve found that jelly beans work too.

It’s just a season, though, I know. It’s where we’re at and we’re not leaving it right now. Naps will happen and later bedtimes will happen and it’s all fine.